Tuesday 1 March 2011

Road block

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook or follow my Twitter then you will have seen an extraordinarily downbeat status update yesterday afternoon (even by my standards). It went like this:
Miserable walk. Rain, a bit of hail, hip pain for hours, and I saw a dead coot floating in the canal. Totally morale shattering.

It was honestly the most horrendous walk of my life, but I was so determined to finish it I just kept going. Even when I was starting to swear under my breath, even when the rain started beating down heavily on me, even when I was not certain my legs would keep me upright. I was going to finish those stupid 23.5 miles because I knew that if I didn't, I might as well give up this whole escapade.

So I finished it.

When I got home, my hips hurt like hell. About an hour after walking through the front door, I was certain that I would never get off the sofa again. All through the night, I was waking to shift from hip to hip. And when I got up this morning it felt as though my legs had been replaced by a pair of very wobbly stilts, painfully strapped directly into my hip joints. But it wasn't the hip that was troubling me. It was my left knee - sore and stiff and almost impossible to straighten.

My boss very kindly let me work from home today - I spent it with my leg in the air and an ice pack strapped to the back of my knee. It feels a good bit better now, easing with a little bit of wandering about the house and a couple of stretches in the front room. But I've still booked myself in to see a physiotherapist in a couple of weeks, just to see if there's something I could be doing better. In the meantime, I'll keep going. I'll note how my body feels and find a way to get through.

Last night I was ready to give up. Tonight, I'm ready to beat this challenge.

5 comments:

  1. Can't wait to see you cross the finish line in May!

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  2. Providing that I can see by that point too, I'm looking forward to it as well!

    Kx

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  3. I send you lots of support and love. I hope your hip doesn't cause too many issues. xxx

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  4. Ouch, hope some rest ice and the physio appointment will help.
    x
    Carla

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  5. Pippa & Carla: Both hip and knee are feeling much better today, thank you! I'm now only walking a bit like Steptoe Senior. :)

    xx

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